MCP Access Profiles

Smartico MCP Access Profiles control what an AI assistant or automated integration can do when connected to your platform through the MCP Server. By defining a profile, administrators choose the exact toolset available to a connection — granting permissions to explore reference data, build segments and campaigns, run operational commands, or query the data warehouse.

Profiles provide fine-grained governance over your MCP connections, ensuring external tools and team members operate under the principle of least privilege while keeping live configurations and data scan costs securely managed.

Why MCP Access profiles are needed

When connecting external AI assistants (such as Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor) or automation scripts to the Smartico platform, different users and integrations require different levels of capability:

• Enforce least privilege: A marketing manager may need tools to create campaigns and build audience segments, while a data analyst only requires access to query the data warehouse. An external auditor or junior team member may need read-only exploration without the ability to modify live settings.

• Control costs and resource usage: Certain tools, such as data warehouse SQL queries and audience estimation, consume billable resources or monthly AI tokens. Restricting these tools prevents unexpected scan costs.

• Protect live platform state: Limiting state-changing tools (such as starting or stopping campaigns, editing flows, and creating rules) prevents unintentional changes to production workflows.

• Streamline assistant context: Restricting the tools exposed to an AI client keeps the assistant focused on the relevant commands for its specific role, reducing latency and prompt size.

Built-in system profiles

Smartico includes five immutable system profiles that are available globally across all labels. System profiles cover standard operational roles and automatically inherit new tools added in future platform updates.

System profile	Description	Included tools & capabilities
MCP Full access	Complete access to every MCP capability.	All read tools, write tools (create and update entities), flow and campaign execution operations, and Data Warehouse analytics tools (structure discovery and SQL execution).
MCP Editor	Configuration and operational management without data warehouse access.	All read tools, entity creation and updates, and all flow and campaign execution operations. Excludes Data Warehouse SQL queries and structure discovery.
MCP Analyst	Analytical exploration and SQL querying without write permissions.	All read tools, Data Warehouse structure discovery, and Data Warehouse SQL execution. Excludes entity creation, entity updates, and state-changing execution operations.
MCP Viewer	Pure read-only discovery and auditing.	Discover and read entities, run read operations (viewing campaign flows, rules, tags), search the product knowledge base, and read reference documentation. Excludes all write tools, operations, and data warehouse queries.
MCP No Access	Disables MCP connectivity entirely.	No tools permitted. Users or tokens with this profile cannot connect to the MCP server.

System profiles cannot be edited by you. System profiles are managed by Smartico and cannot be edited or deleted. To customize tool combinations for your organization, create a custom profile.

Default profile assignments

During platform rollout and user provisioning, profiles are assigned to existing roles according to their administrative privileges:

• CRM Admins: Assigned MCP Full access by default.

• CRM Managers and CRM Manager + Engineers: Assigned MCP Editor by default.

• CRM Support, Affiliate roles, and New Users: Assigned MCP No Access by default.

When new back-office users are created, their initial MCP profile is set to MCP No Access until an administrator explicitly grants access.

Creating custom profiles

If the built-in system profiles do not fit your workflow, administrators can create custom profiles tailored to specific teams or integrations.

How to create a custom profile

1. In the Smartico back-office, navigate to MCP → Access profiles.

2. Click Create profile in the top toolbar.

3. In the General section, provide:

   • Name: A descriptive name for the profile.

   • Description: An optional note explaining the profile's intended use.

4. In the Allowed tools section, select the checkboxes for the tools you want to permit:

   • Read: Entity discovery (entity_types_list, entity_describe), entity search and retrieval (entity_list, entity_get), reference documentation (read_resource), read operations (read_operation), and product knowledge search (get_knowledge).

   • Write: Entity creation (entity_create), entity updates (entity_update), and execution operations (exec_operation). When selecting execution operations, you can grant all operations or pick specific actions individually (such as estimate_audience, clone_campaign, start_campaign, or flow editing steps).

   • Data warehouse: Data warehouse schema discovery and Data Warehouse SQL query execution.

5. Click Save.

A custom profile must contain at least one tool. Custom profiles are scoped to the active label in which they are created.

Assigning profiles

MCP profiles can be assigned to individual back-office users (for personal AI assistant connections) or to static service account tokens.

Assigning to a user (Personal / OAuth connection)

Personal MCP connections use the profile assigned to the back-office user:

1. In the back-office, go to Settings → BO Users (or Label → BO Users).

2. Select the user you want to configure.

3. In the General tab, locate the MCP access profile field.

4. Select the desired profile from the dropdown.

5. Click Save.

MCP profiles are per user, not per label. A user's MCP access profile applies globally across all labels their account can access. Only administrators with permission to manage user roles and MCP settings can assign or change profiles. Users cannot change their own profile from their personal profile settings.

Assigning to a service account (Static MCP token)

Static MCP tokens used by automated backend scripts or shared integrations carry their profile directly on the token:

1. In the back-office, go to MCP → Access tokens.

2. Click Create token (or select an existing token to edit).

3. In the Access profile dropdown, choose the profile for this token.

4. Select the labels the token is allowed to access.

5. Click Create (or Save).

This allows different tokens within the same label to have different privilege levels — for example, a nightly reporting token with MCP Analyst and an automated campaign generator token with MCP Editor.

What happens when an MCP profile changes

When an administrator changes the profile assigned to a user or token, or updates the allowed tools of an existing custom profile, the platform enforces the updates safely:

For back-office users (Personal tokens)

• Immediate session reset: Changing a user's profile (or modifying the toolset of a custom profile currently assigned to users) immediately deactivates all active personal MCP tokens for those users.

• Re-authentication: The user's AI client will be prompted to re-authorize via Sign in with Smartico. The authorization consent screen displays the newly assigned profile and issues a fresh token with the updated toolset.

• Standard logins unaffected: The user's regular back-office web browser session and non-MCP API tokens remain active.

For service accounts (Static tokens)

• Live permission update: Static service tokens keep their existing secret and connection active without needing recreation.

• Rapid tool synchronization: The MCP server updates its permission checks in-place. Subsequent tool calls from the service token will reflect the new tool grants within a minute.

Confirmation guard for active profiles

When editing a custom profile that is currently in use, the back-office displays a confirmation dialog summarizing:

• The number of users who will be signed out of MCP and required to re-authorize.

• The number of service tokens whose tool permissions will update in-place.

Deactivation safeguard: A custom profile cannot be deactivated or removed while it is still assigned to active users or active service tokens. You must reassign the users and tokens to another profile first.

Security and permission rules

To ensure strict multi-tenant security, MCP profile enforcement works in harmony with Smartico's core label permissions:

• Label permissions are strictly enforced: Users without permissions to a label cannot access it over MCP, even if their MCP profile is set to MCP Full access. MCP access is always the intersection of the user's label authorization and their profile's tool permissions.

• Profile applies globally per user: While label permissions dictate which labels a user can access, the MCP profile dictates what tools they can run across all authorized labels.

• Cross-label service token governance: When creating or expanding the toolset of a service token that covers multiple labels, the editing administrator must possess MCP management permissions on every label included in the token's scope.

• Clear error reporting: If an AI assistant attempts to call a tool outside its active profile, the MCP server returns a clear refusal explaining that the assigned profile does not allow the action and instructing the user to contact their administrator.

Frequently asked questions

If a user has MCP Full access, can they access any label on the platform? No. MCP profiles only govern tool capabilities, not label membership. A user can only access labels they have explicit back-office permissions for. Any request targeting an unauthorized label is rejected immediately.

Can I set different MCP profiles for different labels for the same user? No. The MCP access profile is configured per user across their entire account. If you need distinct permission tiers for specific labels or automated systems, create separate static service tokens under MCP → Access tokens with dedicated label scopes and access profiles.

Why was my AI assistant disconnected after my administrator edited my profile? When an MCP profile is modified, all active personal MCP tokens associated with that user are invalidated for security. Simply reconnect your AI assistant using Sign in with Smartico to approve the new profile.

Can I delete or modify built-in system profiles? No. System profiles (such as MCP Full access, MCP Editor, MCP Analyst, MCP Viewer, and MCP No Access) are permanently maintained by Smartico. To define custom tool permissions, create a custom profile under MCP → Access profiles.

How do I prevent an MCP connection from consuming AI tokens or running billable queries? Assign the connection the MCP Editor or MCP Viewer profile, or create a custom profile that omits Data Warehouse SQL querying and the audience estimation operation (estimate_audience).